Today’s building community has responded to environmental concerns, and subsequent consumer pressures to create more energy efficient housing. This is achieved by focusing effort on creating tighter building envelopes, which acts to stabilize indoor air temperatures. With this development comes increased concern over the quality of the air inside our homes, especially when we take into account that, as Canadians, we spend the majority of our time indoors.
The concern over indoor air quality is further intensified when we consider some of the potential health risks associated with indoor air pollutants. Recent studies suggest that indoor air quality can be up to 70% worse than our outdoor environment. When this is combined with insufficient ventilation, today’s modern homes can be filled with synthetic products that produce toxic off-gases and volatile organic compounds, which have the potential to jeopardize our health. In addition, biological irritants ranging from dust mites to animal dander and mould can further contribute to poor indoor air quality and reduced healthy safety.
In order to address theses issues, Riva’s Eco Store carries a full line of air filtration units optimally designed to cleanse indoor air of some of the more severe chemical contaminants, which may contribute to allergic and asthmatic reactions. We also offer a wide range of health certified products designed to combat specific pollutants through sealing or full remediation.
Contact with invasive environmental pollutants and the risk they pose for our overall wellbeing is a concern that is not isolated to the air we breathe, but which also extends to the water we consume, bath in, and clean with. It is often assumed that Canadian municipalities take all the necessary steps to ensure its inhabitants are provided with safe, potable water. However, studies are uncovering that an alarming amount of potentially toxic substances are making their way through these filtration processes and into our water systems from the staggering list of new chemicals being added to everyday products each year. This issue is exacerbated by the deliberate addition of substances to our water, such as fluoride and chlorine, which may pose an equally devastating risk to our health in high quantities.
While turning to bottled water for our consumption needs is one alternative, this multi-billion dollar industry is clouded with issues on regulation, testing standardization, and concerns over container quality and leaching. Even more importantly, from an embodied energy standpoint, the bottled water industry contributes some of the highest pollution levels worldwide. From BPA reusable drinking containers to point of use and whole home water filtration systems, we offer a range of solutions to address the stream of new chemicals and synthetic materials finding their way from our water systems onto our skin and into our bodies.